My Night with John Kasich, the Last Sane Republican on Earth

MADISON, WISCONSIN—The Coliseum Bar was packed to the gunwales with folks watching Villanova and Oklahoma play a national semifinal game. By the time John Kasich rolled in, with about a minute and a half left in the first half, Villanova had removed Oklahoma's heart, both its lungs, its liver, and was making very good progress on the spleen. As the game dissolved into an unprecedented rout, which the Republican campaign no longer seems to be, Kasich was the rolling ball of optimism. To pursue the metaphor beyond the limits of common tolerance, Kasich is a guy on the perpetual rebound.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Seriously, there is looking on the bright side of things, and there is staring directly into the sun. At the end of his pitch, before he rounded into his usual tent-revival spiel about how we are all responsible for our obligation to our neighbors, particularly the lonely widows of the world, Kasich spoke for a while about the increasingly likely possibility of a contested Republican convention in Cleveland next summer. So far, most of the respectable punditry has discussed this scenario in terms of a live-action, cinema-verite remake of a Michael Bay movie. To the folks in the Coliseum, Kasich pitched it as a civics lesson. Hey, folks, come on down, and bring the kiddies, why doncha?

"An open convention can be something great," Kasich said. "Kids will get a chance to see exactly how we elect our leaders. Remember all the people who talk about how we don't teach civics any more? This will be a chance to get them interested in how we select the leader of the free world and our commander in chief. For a minute, maybe we can get them away from Justin Bieber." Kasich also took this new line of thought to The Sunday Showz, telling George Stephanopoulos:

"We just have to keep going and we're going to have an open convention. And, George, you're the guy that gets open conventions. It's going to be so much fun. Kids will spend less time focusing on Bieber and Kardashian and more time focusing on how we elect presidents. It will be so cool."

Come on, George. Even if it's a bloodbath, you know it'll be great TV.

It's an interesting twist in Kasich's message, and possibly a shrewd one, as well. If he can normalize the possibility of a contested convention while, at the same time, cast it as an exercise of participatory democracy instead of the dockside hooley that everyone is expecting, then he puts himself in a very good position to profit from it, especially considering that most of what's left of the Republican establishment trembles at the possibility of He, Trump as the nominee, and almost all of them also consider Cruz to be a nasty skin rash.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

If you want to know why a lot of respectable people are looking to Kasich as the last lifeboat off the deck, don't look to his policies, which are standard issue conservative boilerplate—devolve powers to the states and people like Rick Snyder, tax cuts spur revenue growth, hardcore anti-choice, and a curious devotion to the Worst Idea In American Politics. It's that he's the only one of the Republican candidates left who talks like a human being about other human beings. To He, Trump, all the rest of us are mere set decoration. For Tailgunner Ted Cruz, all the rest of us live in a sinful country who need him to point us back to the golden road of righteous glory. Kasich is the only one of the three who's simply campaigning for high office, who is not on a personal crusade, ego-driven or god-maddened. In a preposterous political year, that makes him a renegade. I don't pretend to endorse the driving context in which Kasich is running, but I recognize something in what he's doing that at least approaches normal politics.

So Kasich can come out and tell his audiences, look, don't worry about the convention. It's going to be fine. In fact, it might even be fun, an Allen Drury novel come to vivid life. Don't worry about the fact that the Cleveland P.D. has laid in enough riot gear to defend a nuclear missile silo. Don't even worry about the fact that the followers of He, Trump already have demonstrated a rather low threshold for anger. John Kasich says this is the way it's supposed to work, if we all pull together and decide not to punch each other out. I wouldn't vote for the guy if he were the last sane man on earth—and, as far as his party is concerned, he may be—but I'd be lying if I said I don't wish him luck with that.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Esquire participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.